gratefullness

It’s amazing what happens when you accept and remain in a place of good thoughts, love and good energy. So much was hitting me at once I was feeling quite overwhelmed and then I remembered that I hadn’t done the work on myself since the yank 1 debacle and getting off years of antidepressants just to buckle under the rubbish.

So I gave it up to the universe. “I give it all up to you universe with love and complete faith and trust in you and I am very grateful for all my many blessings and abundance”.

And I did. I let the worry, the wank and the bullshit go.

My son got his botox injections, his father did pay for them and I was so grateful. He is still struggling, it takes a while for them to work and unfortunately the degeneration has progressed quite forward so there is no telling what the result will be but at least there is the promise of his writhing and jerking and some of the pain to slow down making things less exhausting for him. We have been in touch much more often and that has been a huge blessing. And I took my youngest son to lunch yesterday and bought him some much needed groceries, things that a student at University living independently can’t quite afford and that made me feel good, that he allowed me to do that. He usually gets really worried and says mum you cant afford to do this but I was able to say ‘I just got a job’ and I think that helped!

Yes, I got a job. A permanent job, in this terrible jobs market and economy. I had decided that I really did not want to go back into the stressful ridiculous work I have been doing for years and started to target work in my first career incarnation not long after I got out of School. Travel. I hadn’t worked in the industry for over 25 years and it seemed that even though I had a very good and long background in it (when I left many years ago I was second in charge of an office and a Senior) many were not willing to give me a chance. But I persisted. And I also accepted that I would only earn barely above minimum wage (there is an opportunity for bonuses plus other benefits and a chance to move up quickly) but I know the work is enjoyable and less stressful and that suited me just fine and it is a foot in the door of the industry again. So Friday, a day after my interview I was offered the job. Another blessing.

This will allow me to get an apartment closer to the city, so less isolated and much closer to my sons (my priority as I don’t know how much time I have left with my son) and also friends, who I couldn’t catch up with regularly because transport is merde out here in the sticks!

And Friday night I went out to dinner with ‘the good one’. He took me to dinner and we had a great time, discussed what was going on with us openly and honestly…which at the moment doesn’t need to be defined and I am OK with that because there is so much else going on and also I like having him in my life even if it doesn’t become ‘forever after’. And then we had a fabulous night of wine and music video and ohhhh boyyyy, always off the charts. He made me a lovely breakfast in the morning, it was all up a lovely time. And I was grateful that we are as we are with each other; no pressures no expectations, just friendship, a good friendship where anything can be talked about without fear or worry and just being.

I have let many expectations go realising that to continually push against the tide is futile and a waste of precious energy. I have come to accept that things will be as they are meant to be no matter how much you fight it but if you just let go and ‘go with the flow’ (I kinda hate cliche’s but…) the stress and worry just goes and a sense of peace emerges. I have been searching for that. Peace. Inner peace. It is a wonderful feeling.

For now I am happy to go with it. I want to enjoy the adventures to come but more so I want to enjoy this contentment and acceptance.

“his’ daughter, the “him” in life beyond him” is about to turn 13 August 2 if I remember correctly. At the time he was so love hazed he wanted me to be at his side for the party he was throwing her ‘in the middle of it he wrote me ” things feel bare without you here, I need my hostess by my side”. It’s been 2 years. It took me that long to really let all of that go. I had even written to him when I was in Sydney because right next to me was a building with the name of the company he works for in big bold writing and every time I went to work I would see it and it made me think of him, stupidly, even though at that time I was talking to yank 2. Of course he did not write back. I guess I just had to feel what I was feeling and move through it over time. It was the most difficult thing to emerge from. I really loved him. But I have emerged and for that I am grateful.

Life goes on…thankfully….Love and whitelight xxx

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Part of me did not want to write today, well earlier. Then I wrote an email to my new ‘penfriend’ (old expression pertaining to the marvelous days when a well written letter in handwriting was the way we communicated…aside from the telephone or making visits). I wrote quite a long email after he had sent a short message to say I am still thinking of you and I am about to do my last work shift for the week and then I will make the time to write more.

He is a truck driver in the good old US of A. Chicago, whom I have just started communicating with. We met through a dating website we are both on and we both equally love our respective countries (he loves and has a brother in Sydney whom he misses greatly and I love Sydney and envisage that eventually it will be where I will settle but also visiting regularly or maybe even living in the United States which I also love and I did really like Chicago when I was there…but that is getting a bit ahead of myself….sooo) and are both looking outside of them to meet someone to share a life with perhaps…eventually and if meant to be. I have been sadly disappointed with Australian men, particularly of Italian descent of whom I seemed to somehow date a number of…:( and I know one should never generalise but f..k it, its my blog and I will say what I want! Although the narc that devastated my heart was a Yank…but somehow that doesn’t count!

Now I am not a “what do you do?” snob of a person unlike many. I appreciate that we are more than just what we do as a job but I remember when in our first emails he wrote to tell me what he did he put a kind of secretly veiled apology into it which I found a little sad because he thought that it may make a difference that he was not some high powered Cisco executive or something (!! I know some will get the reference to this!)?! He did say that he had come to this position after a number of other careers and had realised that it was at least a solid days work and he could live with and he enjoyed it which I also admired.

I really don’t care what you do. It is who you are as a person, how you are with others and what is inside that counts. When I was younger it mattered a bit more I am sad to say. But now that life’s boulders have rolled over me consistently and I have risen…a tad battered and bruised yet slightly more enlightened it matters not one jot.

I am back doing work I never thought I would return to, I had come to hate it truth be told, albeit grateful for the work but once again it has already been revealed that even though I knew I was walking into a slightly chaotic environment I never really realised just how much so and part of me resents the fact that what I thought was going to be a wonderful challenge is just at this time purely a stressful means to an end. I have learned over this past year or so many things and handle things much better than I have in years but this has already put a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. I will persevere and do my best with it because I made a commitment to do so. And I do like who I work with as people. They are trying their best. And that is what our clients deserve. I will work for myself one day and I will take what I have learned from experiences like this and make it a damn good concern.

Friday night I had drinks with a dear friend who is moving to the US with her husband very soon. We ended up going out to a bar in the city with live music and danced the night away and it was fun and spontaneous. But ,my head was rather sore yesterday and I also resented feeling all I could do was lay horizontal most of the day and what a waste that was…I guess the fact that as you get older your body does not metabolize alcohol as well as it used to has something to do with it. And also as an slightly older person you need to consider that drinking too many cocktails and good champagne all in one night is something that you should have the good sense to know how to temper….or not…

The one good thing about the narcissist was that he managed to stop me drinking at all for several months and to start exercising and it felt good at the time.

But looking out of the the window of the train on my commute most mornings this week I felt sad, quite sad. Thinking how did my life get like this? Why was it MY son was suffering as he is now and WHY was there no cure or anything I could do except love him and I feel helpless. Why couldn’t I be the one caring for him and having the ability to spend more time with him whilst there still is, there are things that have prevented it? Why am I not living closer to him already, why was I feeling this way already about my job, why had it taken so long to rise above years of seesawing depression, having insane people come into my life and damaging it and destroying my faith in them and other human beings…why why why why why? My eyes would well up on the train and it would be hard to hold back what felt like a tonne of tears ready to explode when I thought I had already cried a river. And I felt guilty that it was all about me and how I was feeling that made me feel even worse. Insipid.

And then I realised that aside from the fact that I had just missed my first period (I was told I was going into menopause a little while back..what marvelous timing in the general scheme of things:(), I have been sick and on antibiotics for a bad chest infection. Not exercising because of it and as I said exercise was a godsend to me over this last year. I really did have legitimate reasons to feel slightly exhausted and tapped of energy, sorry for myself, and that even though I am not the only one going through certain things some are not going through it ALL AT ONCE or concurrently and that even though on the outside they all look like ducks paddling on the pond and the water’s surface seems calm and serene underneath their little feet are paddling as fast as they can t propel themselves forward and that is all we can all do is to try move forward as best we can and keep afloat. Such is life.

So on that note I am signing off from Nutty central. I am going to the gym finally after 2 weeks and I think that will start to make a difference and I will enjoy the rest of this day because at the moment it is all I have…who knows?

Love and whitelight xxx

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The last week or so I have been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but the wondrous thing is I now know why and I fully accept and embrace these days and the future which I know will be difficult at times but also marvelous. Because I said so.

I won’t reel off the list of crap that still exists in my life, it’s in previous posts and frankly I get sick of talking about it because it is what it is and everyone has problems of varying degrees. In some ways its enough to make a grown man cry but I know that the strength gained over time this year has enabled me to say “oh fuck it!” (sometimes the power of the expletive is the only way to create the impact!) and after a good bawl I pick myself back up again and go at it!

I have written alot about how I have moved past depression without medication this time and done it over a very challenging period of my life. One of the biggest changes and mechanisms for a stronger mind has been exercise, a good diet and supplements (including high strength fish oil, B group vitamins, Probiotics and Super Greens). Cliche but true. And I do have Joe to thank for the exercise thing..he was my initial impetus and he was very encouraging in our beginning…something to thank him for!

There is mounting evidence that regular and proper exercise has just as much (if not more) of an effect as antidepressants and I have to say, for me, it’s true. The natural boost from endorphin’s and the like seems to bring a clarity that allows me to put things more into perspective and help allay the rumination that so frequently wears away at you when you have mounting pressures and an impending feeling of doom.

You need to take into account what the root cause or causes may be and go to the heart of it and do the work. I know, I have been there. By no means do I belittle the fact that for some ‘chemical’ imbalance or physical cause is the root and that is when traditional methods; medication and therapy are still the most reliable way to stay upright.

And there are days when amongst it all your body just says ‘NUP’, no way, so you listen and give yourself the time to rest and nurture your aching spirit. IE give yourself some love and care. Have that glass of fabulous red (or several in my case!), sleep that extra hour if you can, read a good book, listen to some good tunes, whatever makes you feel in the moment and brings your energy back to centre.

I’m not trying to preach. There are many blogs out there doing that already. I am simply writing about my own experience and maybe if it works for me it may for someone else. I started this blog for that reason..catharsis and connection.

So it’s Friday and old habits die hard! Years of working in the city and Friday drinks and the excitement from the unwind still sit in my wiring even though I am not working at present (not through choice but circumstance and believe me that is temporary, I am damn sure of that now I am well again and the brain is in ‘go get’em’ mode!)

Funny story; I’ve been doing the dating thing, well not as fervently as recently because I have finally settled into my own groove and rather than try work through the quagmire of men who only want to ‘horizontal mambo’ straight off the bat (seriously, I don’t know if it is just Perth men but it feels like they are spoilt for choice and behave like insolent teenage boys needing their quick ejaculation at any cost…and they get it!…or in my case one guy, 3 years younger than me, who keeps texting me out of the blue…persistent bastard…probably because I won’t give it to him! He is slightly seedy in the sex department, he showed me by his behaviour after one coffee although he was an hilarious bastard as well! Which is the only reason I haven’t blocked him! What? I like a good belly laugh:).

Then there is a 35 yo who every time he opens his mouth I hear ‘waaaahhhh’ and realise why it is he is still single….he needs a mother figure and I guess at 49 I’m it temporarily but he did have some redeeming qualities…somewhere, although I haven’t heard from him for 2 days now after I told him his temper tantrums won’t work with me and frankly I don’t care if he doesn’t message again.

I did speak to the handsome Italian 52 yo I was dating recently this week, it seems we may keep some kind of friendship going as he had said. He is going through a difficult family thing right now (and dating on the side, I’m quite sure….I don;t think I was quite ‘adventurous’ enough for him in the sack…fervent but not adventurous!). And it is true what they say about the so called ‘quiet, gentlemanly ones’! 😉

I am damned serious; some of these men out there really want some seedy shit, they want the porn queen in the bed and the saint in the kitchen and man trying to keep up with this crap is tiring so I am happy to just ‘be’, have a laugh when I want and just enjoy my new sense of self and freedom. (Well partial freedom, I’m still caring for my mum although she is becoming more self sufficient now as her leg is healing and my son is….not as well as he has been…nature of the degenerative disease he has but there is still so much light in him even so and he is well cared for and is kept occupied which is good for him…I wish it could be me all the time but there is another story in that…so I have to get on with my life when I am able…keep connected to life outside of the issues and keep moving forward as best I can).

So yesterday, in the gym the young lass said to me’ how old are you?’ after I was talking about stuff and I said ’49’ and she said ‘no way, oh no way, my god I thought you were 40 at the most, look at your skin and your energy, you glow, my god if I look like you at that age I would be very happy, awesome”.

And I have to say I walked out of there with a big cheesy smile on my face and I realised that for all the crap there are also so many blessings and things to be grateful for…. and even though recently one date said he thought I was a modern hippy! I don’t know quite what he meant by that but hopefully not mutton dressed as lamb…damn it stuff the lamb…mutton is tastier…slow cooked! hahaha

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It’s been quite freeing the last few days walking away from social media and even this blog. Friday I was going to throw caution to the wind and have a different type of time out..with wine and music. I didn’t. And I don’t regret it.

I am starting to see things in a different light, and I like what I see. It is no longer coloured by negativity but a perspective that in every thing which appears to be incredibly painful there is also a blessing. I am finally grateful for my pain because of the incredible joy I have found in the lessons learned. Seriously.

I spent time this weekend doing things I enjoy…true time out. Often laughter, often at myself. At times processing and making sense of things and realising that some things aren’t meant to make sense. It just is.

This will be the possibly the last time I will mention ‘him’ because he no longer matters. There is a much better life beyond him. But part of my necessary processing and final let go was about him.

For example, when I think of ‘him’ now I only feel pity. Pity can be seen as a word to recoil from or patronising but it means to see something through the eyes of compassion amongst other meanings.

He will never know the kind of unconditional love he may have had from someone who cared so deeply, he doesn’t trust it and does not know how to accept it. Eventually he will know that people will realise how unwell and broken he is inside, including his daughter as she becomes a woman in her own right. She will question his inability to keep a normal relationship for any length of time and his actions. Why is there a trail of brokenness? I sincerely hope that she will come out of her attachment to him whole. I think of her often and feel sad for her. People who seek to control and hurt others with their actions will always be exposed in the end. He is trapped in perpetual motion that must in itself be incredibly tiring and debilitating to his health as much as at present it is thrilling in what he sees as his’wins’. These wins will eventually become hollow reality. Hollow. You can not hide from your demons they will eventually rise to face you.

His behaviour is part of an illness and it is one that will never subside unless he comes to a place of awareness and want to change. Sadly the track record is fairly damning for narcissists. You may want to be there and help and love them but in a majority of cases there is no way for a narc to accept that help and love because they do not believe they need help. They are unable to see it, or admit to it if they do. Their solid exterior is that only, exterior, inside they are a chaotic mess. What a horrible way to live your life. Always seeking the thrill of your next conquest, your egotistical supply and it never really being enough.

They always find supply because unfortunately there are other ‘brokens’ out there who are easily manipulated by the charm and simply just want and need what is on offer initially. It is very hard to resist. But with a narc, it can’t be offered for a long period of time, the thrill dies off easily, its simply never enough.

It has taken me a while to accept this for what it is. And I feel sadness for him, and for a long time I wanted to help him because I remembered who I thought was a divine promising young man that I fell in love with many years ago, in a very short space of time. I saw something in him, felt it, even though I was very young…now I know what I saw may have existed then but does not now. When I walked out he knew he would never have control of me again so I had lost my appeal…he cut me off. I no longer exist, I am of no use. Narcissists are incapable of empathy. What a gift he gave me in letting me out of his circle of pain. I am grateful.

And it is not what I want for my life and deep inside I knew it at the time I walked out but it has taken all this time to really understand that I was following my instinct, my intuition and that I should always trust myself. Lesson learned, the hard way but learnt nevertheless!:)

The other stuff, things that have weighed me down for so long no longer hold the same type of power or significance. They are significant but now I know it is because it has taught me what I needed to know.

Over this sad time of depression and grief it feels as though I have gone through a metamorphisis; completely emptied myself of despair, felt pain so unbearable, fear of what might happen to me if I let go of these things that bind me and complete confusion. I’ve felt completely alone and yet I coveted the isolation. I needed it to get through this. Part of the change has been to discard what I kept because for a long time I thought without it I could not survive, whether consciously or not it is what I felt I needed…including friendships. I was completely fearful of being alone and therefore kept a hold on ties that never really helped me at all and if anything were toxic.

Admitting to yourself that you have perpetuated this circle of pain of your own volition is extremely tough (admitting your part in it all). But it is necessary in the healing process. You can’t without it.

I have forgiven those that have hurt me or have not been a positive part of my life and even thought they will no longer play a part in it I am grateful that they did in the past. I forgive myself, it is impossible to go through life making decisions that are always right, it’s not human.

I watched an incredibly inspiring movie last night called ‘Belle’. Based in the late 1700’s and on a true story it is about an illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of a British admiral who plays an important role in the campaign to abolish slavery in England. It was amazing. It highlighted to me that you do not have to accept the will of others, who impose their own biases and prejudices and expectations. That if you remain true to you and combine it with action what an extraordinary difference you can make not only in your own life but in that of others…in good intention. With love, honesty, compassion and forgiveness.

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Isn’t it funny that when you are going through the mire and you hear all the damn cliche’s like “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” trotted out by well meaning friends and strangers you just want to either punch them or tell them to “shut the hell up!”

But, and listen up people, the fact of the matter is; IT IS SO DAMN TRUE!

There is so much evidence to prove this much used saying, you got to say…someone coined that for a reason!

When I first started writing my blog the intention was catharsism and distraction. And the theme was just let it go wherever you want it to go..you just need to write, let it out. And I have.

The tone has been so dark in places, and that is because I have been through a pretty dark time in my life, one of many as those that have followed will know. It started as a way of moving past a detrimental relationship, became about a depression I was trying to avoid but ended up having, reliving a bad childhood and past that had affected me throughout my life had a major bearing on how I lived, the decisions I made, the people I chose to see as friends but who really weren’t and had a toxic effect on my life, resentment about my sons’ illness and other hurts, and also about taking responsibility for myself and my actions.

The time has come to choose and take a new direction. To admit that everything that has happened has contained its own lesson…even more recently him, Joe, and I would like to thank him formally here because if he hadn’t come back into my life and stomped on it, I would never have commenced this process of self awareness, honesty, healing and repair and finally come to the realisation not only of the things I don’t want in my life but the epiphany that I now am starting to get about what I do want in my life.

EPIPHANY. The urban dictionary has a quite funny definition; Top Definition. epiphany. a smart-sounding word for realizing you’ve been practically retarded for quite some time.

Now before anyone jumps on the “politically correct bandwagon, waves their hands around in the air screaming “Oh that’s so wrong, to use that word, you are having a go at a people type, boycott this blog yada yada” well no, I’m not, and the urban dictionary is not, and IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE especially these days for one word (IE retarded) to have several references…so there!

I digress.

Time and psych visits, self exploration and will to move forward have been what has finally started to allow me to actually open my eyes, and receive the stuff that some lucky bastards are just born with or learn earlier in life. There is no point in detailing it here there are a million blogs that will tell you the magical formula to success in life. That is not what this is about for me. I want to find a way to write and earn an income from it as well, but it is more important to just do what makes me happy and in the process hopefully those around me will be as well. I don’t quite know exactly where the change has come from but I feel it…perhaps this mindfulness and forgiveness stuff I have been working on?

So, what do you do with your new found epiphany? Your new way of seeing things? You write about that as well. I was at a crossroads, hence part of the blog title! I kinda still am but I know that there are many options opening up to me that I never saw before.

I am less than a year shy of 50! If I am lucky and I do things right like diet (no, not the starving myself kind…never done that and never will, its about being sensible) and exercise, start to engage/re-engage with the right kind of people; the non toxic, honest, not so self interested and just plain intelligent kind. Find my tribe, so to speak. Focus on things that matter and let the rest take care of it itself. Be kind and aim not to hurt anyone whilst at the same time not put the welcome mat out on my forehead again for people to wipe their muddied boots on. Do things the way I want to not how everyone expects me to ie be authentic…I guess that is a pretty good way to start…

Everyone reaches a crossroads. Sometimes several times in their life. Not everyone gets the lessons or takes the opportunities that sometimes come from places of pain and hurt and that is sad. I will continue to impart my observations and musings, the story about what happens with life beyond him. Maybe not daily, just as it comes… I am grateful and thankful for the valuable lessons.